A few weeks ago, a comedy film came out with a tired and unfunny premise: In “The Breadwinner,” a dad stays home to care for his three children while their mom goes to work. Hilarity ensues, right? In 2026, it shouldn’t.
We are asked to laugh at a man who doesn’t know the way to his own kids’ schools. A dad this absent isn’t goofy; he’s a stranger. In the family’s kitchen, a dry-erase board lists the family’s daily activities, prompting the dad character to ask, “How long is the list?” — as if he had just noticed the board for the first time. It didn’t make me laugh. It bothered me. Popular media still tells men that showing up at home is optional.
My father, whom I called Papajee, worked a government job in Delhi while my mom took care of three boys full time. In the evenings and on weekends, Papajee would sit on the floor in front of the TV and peel onions, cut cauliflower or pick apart spinach leaves. He walked me to the bus stop every morning for school — but only after polishing my shoes and ironing my clothes. He showed up. Daily. I felt his presence. Daily.
We need to stop framing a man’s presence in the home as a sacrifice or a comedic trope. My disappointment and frustration with this “clueless male” trope isn’t just about the media representation. It’s personal. When I first moved to the U.S. for work, I called my mother on Skype to show her a chicken curry I had made from scratch. Instead of praising this triumph, my mother cried. She was unhappy that her son had to cook for himself. It’s not just an American thing: There’s a persistent global myth that men should remain functionally helpless at home.
When my parents later came to visit me, I had an argument with my mom because I wouldn’t let her wash the dishes after dinner. I knew that she wanted to wash the dishes not because she was a grateful guest and not because she wanted to fairly divide the duties of cooking and cleaning, but because she is a woman and I am a man. Had I been her daughter instead of her son, I suspect she would have let me play host(ess) and wash the dishes without comment. I refused to follow that gendered script in my own home.
In many cultures, male domestic helplessness has been treated, weirdly, as a sign of masculinity. Shouldn’t general competence be the mark of adulthood, regardless of gender? It’s not manly to not know where the fresh towels are; it’s lazy and embarrassing.
Sure, sometimes I miss my turn to clean the kitty litter or forget to take the garbage out before the trash pickup. But I won’t let it become a habit. That would unfairly foist the responsibilities onto my girlfriend.
A few decades ago, showing the clueless male on screen perpetuated an imbalance that existed in most homes. To show the clueless male today is even worse, impressing a rejected old unjust model on generations that ought to be moving past it. This disrespects the legacy of men like my father who made that progress — men who did everything they could without making a fuss about it.
We can and should reframe how our culture’s stories portray men in 2026. Normalizing the domestic man isn’t just a gift for the women in the family; it’s the only way for men to be present for their own lives. It has long been observed that some men are, out of laziness, intentionally or subconsciously pretending to be clueless — what’s known as weaponized incompetence. Men should not consider that to be an option. Our conditioning must change.
I may have lost Papajee in 2021, but I’ll never lose his invaluable lessons on manhood. He made it look effortless. And really, guys: It’s not that hard.
Mayur Chauhan is an actor, writer and creativity coach in Los Angeles.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
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The article argues that the “hapless dad” character — the father who cannot find the kids’ school, has never noticed the family calendar and bungles basic tasks — is no longer funny in 2026 but instead signals a kind of emotional absence and irresponsibility that should not be normalized.
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It contends that these portrayals tell men, implicitly, that participation in family life is optional, because fathers are framed as visiting guests or comic relief rather than as competent, central caregivers.
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The piece contrasts this trope with the author’s own father, who worked full time yet consistently did hands-on domestic tasks — from ironing school uniforms to prepping vegetables and walking a child to the bus stop — to illustrate that involved parenting by men is neither rare nor heroic, just ordinary adulthood.
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It further argues that media and family expectations often treat even basic male domestic competence as a special “sacrifice” or bonus, whereas the same behaviors are considered routine and unremarkable for women.
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The article situates the issue in a global context, describing how some parents still react with distress when sons cook or clean for themselves, revealing a lingering belief that men should remain functionally helpless at home while women shoulder invisible labor.
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It criticizes the way many cultures have coded domestic incompetence as a marker of masculinity, insisting that the true marker of adulthood, for any gender, is general competence — knowing where the towels are, taking out the trash, managing the family schedule and sharing routine chores.
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The piece acknowledges that everyone occasionally forgets tasks, but stresses that repeatedly “forgetting” household work often becomes a pattern that shifts the burden onto women partners, which the article frames as unfair and avoidable.
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It connects the “clueless male” character to the concept of “weaponized incompetence,” in which some men play up their ineptitude so that others will take over undesirable tasks, and urges men not to treat that as an acceptable strategy.
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The column argues that continuing to recycle this trope now is worse than it was decades ago: it imposes an “old unjust model” onto new generations at a time when many real fathers are more engaged and want their efforts reflected, echoing modern parenting advocates who call the “hapless dad” a relic of an era when men earned the money and women did all the caregiving.[1][2]
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It calls for reframing cultural stories so that a “domestic man” is normalized, not idealized or mocked, noting that this change benefits women by reducing unpaid labor and benefits men by allowing them to be fully present in their own family lives.
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The article closes by treating competent fatherhood as a learned, repeatable behavior — modeled by men like the author’s father — and suggests that building this new norm is less difficult than many men claim, provided they reject the script of helplessness.
Different views on the topic
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Some media and humor scholars maintain that exaggerated depictions of inept parents, including fathers, are a longstanding comedic device that functions as satire or social commentary, not as an instruction manual for behavior; in this view, flawed characters can highlight and critique real domestic imbalances rather than endorse them.[3]
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From a storytelling perspective, critics of overhauling such characters entirely argue that familiar archetypes and tropes help writers quickly establish roles and conflicts an audience recognizes, allowing comedy or commentary to land faster; academic work on literary tropes emphasizes how recurring character types are routinely used to organize narrative and signal expectations to readers.[4]
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Certain commentators suggest that while “useless dad” stereotypes can be lazy or unfair, many families do still experience uneven domestic labor, and these portrayals sometimes resonate because they mirror frustrations that partners feel about disengaged spouses; in this reading, the humor gives voice to real grievances rather than simply excusing male behavior.[2]
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Some parents and viewers argue that comic depictions of fathers learning to cope — fumbling through school runs, mishandling laundry, burning dinner — can also normalize the idea that men are in the process of becoming more involved, and that missteps are part of that transition; they worry that if all incompetent portrayals are rejected, stories may swing toward an equally unrealistic demand for flawless fatherhood.
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Advertising and entertainment industry voices have, at times, defended humorous “dad fail” scenes by saying that light-hearted exaggeration creates relatable moments and that audiences distinguish between slapstick and real-life expectations, pointing to broader research on humor’s role in relieving domestic and political tensions.[3]
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Some fatherhood advocates contend that the main problem is not the existence of comedic fathers but the lack of variety: they call for a wider spectrum that includes competent, nurturing, and silly dads side by side, rather than eliminating bumbling characters altogether, arguing that a mix of representations better reflects the diversity of real families and avoids replacing one rigid ideal with another.[2]
